Super Martha!

A friday night here in the metropolis of Wilmot Flat. Ben and I are holding down the couch as the sun setting in the western sky is cutting a breathtaking swath through the newly-hatched leaves of Spring. I'm feeling myself exhale a bit as I feel the closing of my fourth week of work as a therapist with Counseling Associates.

What's been emerging for me is an awareness that an old ghost continues to haunt me as I work with people. I'll explain.

I've been waking up a little bit as friends and family have been asking me how I am - I'm beginning to notice that this is such a complicated and huge question. Overall, I'm great. Frankly, I still feel incredibly grateful for things like laundry facilities and dishes that are washed rather than piled in the sink or on top of the stove (a la 'the ghetto' in Praia da Luz). I'm in awe of the unfolding life that permeates this season. I feel so lucky that I really enjoy my job, that I have a job, that the people are so..... so good - such warm and caring and funny souls. I'm delighted still sharing a home with Bradford and Ben (although Ben is revealing himself to be the ultimate 'designer dog' and had his 3rd trip to the vet's today because it's been discovered that he's "allergenic"! - poor boy. He has the only health care in the family.).

But a friend mentioned to me a week or so ago that she was watching the TV show "In Treatment" and she was curious what it must be like to spend much of a day sitting and listening to people who are suffering, lost, confused, and/or in pain. I was at a loss for an answer. The quick and easy response is: "You get used to it. You don't take it to heart. You keep a healthy distance so that you are able to be a source of clarity and perspective for people."

That's not true for me. Stuff hits me. I don't think I show it all the time but I think it accumulates somewhere in my psyche, somewhere in my soma, both bruising and bursting my heart. And so I pause, take a breath and check inside. I realize there's a little bit of disconnection or disassociation happening in me. I think I do this by the way I work through a daily schedule, checking off my client's from the list after our meeting, after I file their paperwork - readying myself for the next couch-inhabiter.

And every now and again a client presents a clear opportunity for my ghost to rise up and take the reins. Every once in awhile a client presents a set of circumstances or an issue and I see a doorway into a passage, through to a room where I might alleviate my own build-up of collected client debris. I look for the nearest phonebooth (not so easy to find in this day of cellphones but nonetheless) so that I can change into my superhero costume and rush in to save the day. If I can rescue them from their pain, clearly I can release myself from my own.

This week I was working with a couple who were struggling because each of them watched the other wrestle with life circumstances and felt helpless to make it better - a very nice pattern to see emerge in couple's therapy. And so we began to explore the difference between "rescuing" and "supporting" - worlds apart. Rescuing requires a cape of some sort and some kind of special superhero ability (my personal preference is my cutting intelligence and insight). It's a short-term intervention and the results, though seemingly uplfiting, are disastrous - essentially undermining the suffering party's resiliency as well as their ability to be in contact with themselves and another person as the pain of living rolls through. Supporting, on the other hand, is a demonstration of deep love, true compassion, and absolute courage. Supporting someone in pain or confusion requires that I stay present and roll through all of the sharp and tender places which arise for me as I resonate with another who is suffering. Stay open. Stay in contact. Breathe. And listen for the still and quiet voices from within to guide my interactions.

Attempting to "fix" or rescue someone from their experience it's like a drug for me. It allows me to alleviate my fear that I'm a ninkempoop at my job and it releases me from the bonds of humanness which, in my line of work, are replete with shitty feelings. I don't have the answers, really. Hell, I don't like feeling helpless either. Sometimes all I can think to myself (or say outloud) is "I trust you. I trust life. I believe in your courage as you breathe into these dark and scary places. And I believe in my abilty to stay with you."

I'm not sure that does anything to resolve the issue of how much debris I'm accumulating (or personal stuff I'm triggering in myself) through the therapeutic process but it feels more true.

And spandex just looks plain bad on me.